Keon Poindexter.

Finally Keon. I'd say, from the outside, we'd look like unlikely best friends. We were brought up in very different ways. I was raised a Bama fan and used to winning, and he was a State fan… 

We met at school, I'm sure, but the first distinct memory I have of Keon was him coming up to me during a summer workout at football, summer before junior year, and he was completely amused by the fact that I always had a Gatorade and a water with me everyday. He's been laughing at my peculiarities ever since. Junior year we had Ag together and on Gamedays me, Keon, and Trent Kelly would leave Big Larry's class and go visit Mrs. Tabbie, then go to the field house. We remained friends that year and during summer football workouts, I invited him to Youth Camp. The rest is history so they say. He got addicted to camp and started coming regular to our church in September of that year.

Keon and I connect on all four of the four most important things in life:  football, music, church and food. We obsessed about football, me probably more than him. Even at that first Youth Camp together in 2005 we talked about football and playoffs in every spare moment. Football, to us, meant a way of life more than a pass time. We understood in high school what most people don't realize until they are grown- football is two things- magical and temporary. To describe the magic, we bonded through music, and as our senior season wore on, music also began to describe the temporariness of it, and music has continued to describe every stage of life. As a matter of fact, there hasn't been a situation yet in our friendship that we could not relate to music and football. Those two would be our closest bond if it weren't for church. It was actually music and football that brought Keon to church. We'd spend Wednesdays before practice in my truck listening to music and he'd just ride with me after practice to church. He kept coming and got saved in February of our senior year after the Valentine banquet. That's when we truly became brothers. From Bible studies at ICC to being roommates, Keon has seen me at my highest spiritual highs and my lowest spiritual lows, and has been involved in both. "Word of God Speak," said for us what we wanted to say, and is still the only thing some people know us for. Finally, food. I still remember the first time we invented and tried "Bill Gates Pie." Changed my life. And our true genius showed up the way all genius does. It was like an itch we couldn't scratch or a craving we couldn't satisfy until we invented fluxuous. Fluxuous is probably something similar to what the fruit tasted like on the tree that Adam and Eve ate. It has two things in common- irresistible temptation and if you eat it you will surely die. But it is like Fourth of July to your tongue.

Keon is my bestman because he is the only person I can have a full conversation with using only music, movie, and ESPN quotes. He's the only friend I have who truly appreciates Big and Rich, Kanye West, John Mayer, The Rochesters, and The Erwins all at the same time. He's the only person I know that when I mention Panama City Beach, the first thing that comes to mind is sausage balls. He's the only person that can start singing the same random song as me at the same time without prior discussion and it be in perfect harmony… and it's happened several times. We are the only two people in the world who have tied on a coin toss, which defeats the purpose of a coin toss. Mallory and I can finish each other's sentences. Keon and I can't but we can start each others' sentences which is way weirder. And he's the person I'm most likely to die with because if we ever eat sausage balls and fluxuous together I'm pretty sure it would stop our hearts. Both of our email addresses end in "356."